Bombs Away!

From the BBC:

"London Blitz: Bomb Sight interactive map created"

An interactive map showing the location of bombs dropped on London during World War II has been created. It reveals the devastation caused by the Blitz over eight months. The year-long project, called Bomb Sight, was devised by a team from the University of Portsmouth using data from the National Archives. The website and android app also allow people to find out the types of bombs that fell.

'Circle of fire' Dr Kate Jones, the University of Portsmouth geographer who devised the project, said: "When you look at these maps and see the proliferation of bombs dropped on the capital, it does illustrate the meaning of the word Blitz, which comes from the German meaning lightning.

The Blitz:

• Blitz - German for lightning - was used by the British press to describe the heavy bombing raids carried out over Britain in 1940 and 1941
• 29 December 1940 marked one of the fiercest bombing raids of the Blitz - it caused what became known as the Second Great Fire of London
• The raids killed 43,000 civilians and lasted for eight months, petering out when Hitler began to focus on his plans for Russian invasion

"It seems astonishing that London survived the onslaught." Users can zoom in to specific streets on the map, which uses red symbols to illustrate where each bomb landed. The project was funded by education and research charity Jisc which offers resources and expertise to educational organisations.

More than 20,000 people were killed and 1.4m people made homeless during the Blitz, which took place between 7 September 1940 and 11 May 1941. A spokesman from Bomb Sight said the project uses maps of the London bomb census, taken between October 1940 and June 1941. The bombing locations were combined with geo-located photographs from the Imperial War Museum, and memories from the BBC's WWII People's War Archive. Jisc programme manager Paola Marchionni said the project was "similar to a map sat-nav". She said: "The original Blitz maps have been scanned and geo-referenced thanks to the National Archive and testimonials from the BBC have been incorporated together with historical images from the Imperial War Museum to create an interactive teaching and learning resource." The website appeared to be experiencing problems due to high volumes of traffic earlier.

^ This is a great way to both remember the innocent men, women and children that the Germans killed in air raids during World War 2 as well as to teach children what it must have been like during those times. The spots where the bombs fell along with the pictures of the streets after the raids help paint the picture of just 8 months of wartime London. I have checked out the website and looked at the places I have visited in my countless times in the city and it was pretty interesting. ^

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20637222